News Roundup and Hotfixes: December 6th

Today's hotfixes cover Dragon Soul nerfs, some item changes (Heart of the Unliving trinkets receiving a passive intellect bonus, 4-piece Holy Paladin Tier 13 nerfed, etc), and transmogrification fixes for mailed items--level 1 alts can no longer run around in heirlooms transmogged to look like fun raiding gear, for example. Also in the roundup: PvP Season 11 began today and Bashiok made an awesome post explaining how many Darkmoon Faire tickets can be farmed up each month via each method of acquisition.

In addition to the documented Dragon Soul changes, many raiding guids began Dragon Soul hardmodes today and are reporting undocumented hotfixes as well between pulls.

Hotfixes: December 6

General

Transmogrified items should always lose their transmogrification when mailed.

The Darkmoon Firework no longer has a duration, is now holiday-bound, and requires Darkmoon Faire to be active.

Darkmoon Faire revelers who enter an off-limits area in ghost form should now be properly ported out.

Entangling Roots, Freeze, and Frost Nova should now properly break when the affected player takes damage while a damage absorption effect is also active.

Classes

Hunter

Kill Command should now always consume the Resistance is Futile! buff, regardless of whether the target has Hunter's Mark or not.

Reverted a bug fix that caused Bombardment to be consumed by the next Multi-Shot. Fixing this bug proved to be a significant dps loss, so Bombardment once again lasts for its full 6 second duration regardless of the number of Multi-Shot casts. The tooltip will be updated in a future patch to reflect that this change is intended.

Paladin

Divine Aegis, Ancestral Awakening, Ancestral Vigor, Holy Priest Mastery, Holy Paladin Mastery, and Living Seed now trigger properly based on pre-absorb healing, even if the triggering heal is fully absorbed.

Warrior

Deep Wounds should now be correctly activated by critical hits from Opportunity Strike, Raging Blow, Heroic Leap, and Intercept.

Using Pummel, modified by Gag Order, will now Silence the target for 3 seconds in addition to locking out the spell school for 4 seconds.

Dungeons & Raids

End Time

The trash preceeding Echo of Baine should now hit for less Fire damage.

Hour of Twilight

Flailing Tentacles now despawn shortly after they appear, and can no longer be attacked.

Well of Eternity

Players should no longer lose the Shadowcloak buff when a group member leaves, joins, or zones in or out of the instance.

Mannoroth

Magistrike Arc should no longer be activated by pet attacks, and now has a 100% chance of being activated after a 3 second cooldown.

Rogue Stealth and mage Invisibility are no longer broken when Doomguard Devastators land and become valid targets, or when other Demons spawn from the Nether Tear portal.

Dragon Soul

Accepting a Warlock summon while riding a drake taxi in Dragon Soul should now cancel the drake ride and port the player to the location of the summon.

Fall of Deathwing is now available via Raid Finder once you have completed Siege of Wyrmrest.

Players who have killed the final boss in one of the wings of Dragon soul via Raid Finder will be more likely to enter fresh instances on subsequent Raid Finder instances that week. This should make it easier to kill earlier bosses that they might have missed.

Yor'sahj the Unsleeping

The Aggro Radius has been properly adjusted for all difficulties of this encounter.

Slimes, Mana Voids, and Forgotten Ones have had their HP reduced by 20% on Raid Finder difficulty.

Pets cannot be summoned during the decent into this encounter.

Warlord Zon'ozz

Ball damage should now be splitting its total damage amongst all players nearby on Raid Finder difficulty.

Pets cannot be summoned during the decent into this encounter.

Ultraxion

Players should no longer find themselves in the Twilight Realm after Ultraxion has been defeated.

Essence of Dreams should strain CPUs less in 25-player raids. This buff will now activate once per second for each healer who has the buff, and the healing done by the effect will equal the amount of health healed by the healer within that one second window.

Spine of Deathwing

Corruption, Hideous Amalgamation, and Burning Tendons are now level 88, up from 87, and have had their health slightly increased.

Madness of Deathwing

Priests under the effect of Spirit of Redemption will now receive credit for defeating Deathwing as long as they were part of the encounter.

Temple of Ahn'Qiraj

The Prophet Skeram, the Illusions of The Prophet Skeram, Princess Yauj, Lord Kri, and Vem no longer grant reputation when killed.

Throne of the Tides

Lady Naz'jar

All of the creatures in the Lady Naz'jar gauntlet are now immune to mind control mechanics.

Zul'Gurub

High Priest Venoxis has been convinced to clean up after himself when his encounter is reset, and his venom puddles should disappear.

Items

Bracers of Flowing Serenity now have a +20 Intellect socket bonus that is properly applied when the gem requirement is met.

Foul Gift of the Demon Lord and Varo'then's Brooch should no longer be usable by players under the effects of crowd control spells.

All three Heart of Unliving trinkets now additionally provide a passive intellect bonus.

Mana Tide Totem now benefits from Heart of Unliving.

Pit Fighter and Master Pit Fighter now have more stamina.

The Moonwell Phial trinket buff shold no longer be disabled when the player enters combat.

The paladin tier-13 four-piece set bonus should now increase healing done by Holy Radiance by 5%, down from 20%.

The priest tier-13 two-piece set bonus should again trigger a 23-second Temporal Boon for Discipline priests, up from 20 seconds.

Quests and Creatures

While on the quest "Archival Purposes", players should now be able to open Elementium Gem Clusters.

Thanks everyone for your feedback. To hopefully clear up some of the confusion over time investment vs reward costs we've broken down exactly how many tickets you can obtain in a single Darkmoon Faire week. The design intent of the Darkmoon Faire is that it’s available for one week out of the month, and in that one week we expect you to be able to obtain a significant amount of tickets. To clarify the OP’s point of how long it would take to obtain an entire set of cosmetic gear, the math presented was incorrect, and it would in fact only take 4 Darkmoon Faire weeks to complete an entire set. That’s of course still no quick task, and the intent is not for it to be. There are plenty of rewards that can be obtained in one or two weeks of the Darkmoon Faire, but we expect that an entire set will take a few events to obtain.

Keeping all of this in mind we don’t feel the current ticket acquisition rates or reward costs are out of hand, but we’re interested to hear your thoughts after reading this information and considering the longevity of the content, as well as the ‘once a month’ format of the faire. We’ll be continually evaluating it, and we’re looking forward to incorporating more goodies to be won, and more activities to the faire, in the future.

PvP Season 11 Begins

The third PvP season of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is now underway! Matchmaking (MMR), Team, and Personal Ratings have been reset and players are once again able to compete in level-85 Arenas and Rated Battlegrounds for the best PvP gear, items, and titles. The 4000-point Honor cap has been restored, and Season 11 Conquest Point and improved Honor Point rewards are now available for purchase.

Players who were in the top teams from each battlegroup at the end of Season 10 will also be receiving their end-of-season rewards shortly. These include Arena- and Rated Battleground-specific titles and, for players who have earned the rank of gladiator, the Ruthless Gladiator’s Twilight Drake.

Prepare yourselves for battle as the bloody struggle between the Horde and the Alliance continues.

Raid Finder Loot Exploit Suspensions

Shortly after patch 4.3 was released, we became aware that some players were abusing an exploit to obtain loot from the same Raid Finder bosses multiple times in a single raid lockout period (one week). The Raid Finder loot mechanic is of course intended to only allow a person to roll on boss loot drops once per raid lockout period. The raid lockout mechanic has been a mainstay of the World of Warcraft rules since Onyxia and Molten Core, ensuring that no one can obtain loot from a boss more than once per lockout. Due to the nature of the exploit and the clear intent of those who abused it, they've been issued notices and given temporary suspensions from the game. We’re also working to remove all Raid Finder items from those who used the exploit.

New Lore: "Charge of the Aspects" Story

The Cenarion Circle's victory in the Firelands offers Azeroth a brief reprieve. With the elemental armies of Deathwing the Destroyer broken and the Twilight's Hammer still reeling from its loss in the Bastion of Twilight, the tide has finally turned in favor of Azeroth's defenders.

Emboldened by these triumphs, the Earthen Ring, the Cenarion Circle, and the remaining Dragon Aspects have completed the ritual to heal the World Tree Nordrassil. Now, the three groups shift their attention and energies toward using Nordrassil to mend their shattered world.

Their efforts may well be in vain, however, for they will soon see that they cannot afford to waste any more time before they deal with the true threat to Azeroth: Deathwing.

---

I have murdered one of my own.

The thought hit Nozdormu the Timeless One the instant he saw the desiccated bronze dragon. Zirion had shriveled into a husk half his original size. Lesions covered his body from head to tail. Instead of blood, golden sand cascaded out of the wounds in unending streams upon which shimmered ghostly images of his life that had not yet come to pass. His future was bleeding out of him.

Nozdormu strode across one of the isolated peaks of Mount Hyjal to stand by Zirion's side, every moment of history rippling over the Timeless One's sun-colored scales. As he loomed over the dying dragon, a wave of helplessness flooded through him. An impenetrable veil had descended on the timeways, one that not even he, the Aspect of the bronze dragonflight and the Guardian of Time, could pierce. The past and future—things he had once seen with clarity—had become muddled.

Give the Gift of Warcraft

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With these deals, there’s never been a better time to recruit a friend to World of Warcraft or hook up your guildmate with a new mount or pet. Click here to start shopping, but don’t delay; these offers end Monday, December 19, 2011.

Comentarios

Comentario de Interest

on 2011-12-06T23:34:59-06:00

Transmogrified items should always lose their transmogrification when mailed.

Dang it. They fixed it.

Reverted a bug fix that caused Bombardment to be consumed by the next Multi-Shot. Fixing this bug proved to be a significant dps loss, so Bombardment once again lasts for its full 6 second duration regardless of the number of Multi-Shot casts. The tooltip will be updated in a future patch to reflect that this change is intended.

No wonder my AoE dps seemed a little...subpar...

The trash preceeding Echo of Baine should now hit for less Fire damage.

I saw this coming. The trash was pretty freaking brutal. With few exceptions, tanks/melee died to them.

Comentario de Zmobie

Comentario de Iceveiled

on 2011-12-07T10:15:03-06:00

Baine trash wasn't bad if you used CC and careful pulls. I guess everybody is getting lazy since it's the end of the expansion - we're now back to the AOE burn-down fest just like the end of WOTLK. Not complaining, but I just find it interesting.

Comentario de Alfa

on 2011-12-07T10:36:01-06:00

Nope, I said 141, then 145 when I realized I did the math wrong.

Actually, you're still wrong. :P

You can earn 150 per a week. Why? Because you can do the game dailies before the reset(3:00am) once Darkmoon Faire starts at 12:01am server time.

Ta-da!

Comentario de Interest

on 2011-12-07T12:14:53-06:00

Nope, I said 141, then 145 when I realized I did the math wrong.

Actually, you're still wrong. :P

You can earn 150 per a week. Why? Because you can do the game dailies before the reset(3:00am) once Darkmoon Faire starts at 12:01am server time.

Ta-da!

Pretty sure that isn't intended at all.

Also, iirc dailies reset at 3 AM server time, not 12 midnight.

Comentario de Adamsm

on 2011-12-07T12:18:56-06:00

Dailies reset at 4am(Eastern time) 1am Pacific; so no, the Faire would be gone by then, also, on Saturday it's still setting up till the server resets at 6.

Comentario de knightxwolf

on 2011-12-07T13:41:35-06:00

Transmogrified items should always lose their transmogrification when mailed.

What reason prompted this action? Isn't it bad enough that we have to get our heirlooms on every realm (something being worked out for FOREVER now)?

This kind of move is what i term as "ANTI FUN" it does not buff or nerf any aspect of the game but greatly reduces the amount of joy attained in doing different type of things in it.

and that is bad why? you earned the ones you used to trans right? I dont see the point

Comentario de Adamsm

on 2011-12-07T13:51:08-06:00

Transmogrified items should always lose their transmogrification when mailed.

What reason prompted this action? Isn't it bad enough that we have to get our heirlooms on every realm (something being worked out for FOREVER now)?

This kind of move is what i term as "ANTI FUN" it does not buff or nerf any aspect of the game but greatly reduces the amount of joy attained in doing different type of things in it.

Because it was a bug; they were never meant to hold the effect after being mailed.

Comentario de Interest

on 2011-12-07T17:01:40-06:00

Transmogrified items should always lose their transmogrification when mailed.

What reason prompted this action? Isn't it bad enough that we have to get our heirlooms on every realm (something being worked out for FOREVER now)?

This kind of move is what i term as "ANTI FUN" it does not buff or nerf any aspect of the game but greatly reduces the amount of joy attained in doing different type of things in it.

Because it was a bug; they were never meant to hold the effect after being mailed.

It's kinda funny how people kept saying it's not a big deal, so it wouldn't get fixed.

I wonder if they're going to keep the current Transmogs that were already done.

Comentario de Alfa

on 2011-12-07T23:18:44-06:00

Dailies reset at 4am(Eastern time) 1am Pacific; so no, the Faire would be gone by then, also, on Saturday it's still setting up till the server resets at 6.

I am talking about the sunday it starts. Between 12:01am and 2:59am you can do the dailies on sunday, then at 3:00am you can do them again, for sunday. :)

@ Interest - that is what I said. Derp :p

Comentario de Interest

on 2011-12-07T23:50:53-06:00

Dailies reset at 4am(Eastern time) 1am Pacific; so no, the Faire would be gone by then, also, on Saturday it's still setting up till the server resets at 6.

I am talking about the sunday it starts. Between 12:01am and 2:59am you can do the dailies on sunday, then at 3:00am you can do them again, for sunday. :)

@ Interest - that is what I said. Derp :p

Hm. I see that getting fixed then...Probably will start at X:01, where X is the time dailies reset.

Comentario de Alfa

on 2011-12-08T05:03:15-06:00

Dailies reset at 4am(Eastern time) 1am Pacific; so no, the Faire would be gone by then, also, on Saturday it's still setting up till the server resets at 6.

I am talking about the sunday it starts. Between 12:01am and 2:59am you can do the dailies on sunday, then at 3:00am you can do them again, for sunday. :)

@ Interest - that is what I said. Derp :p

Hm. I see that getting fixed then...Probably will start at X:01, where X is the time dailies reset.

Dont you think they would've fixed that in the past few years? Don't see why they wouldn't do that now, even with the holidays that come around during the year, same thing. Its just a nice little perk to know to do the dailies right when darkmoon starts for the week before the reset. :)